


Boys Will Be Girls

by Ultra



Series: Moments in Time [12]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempt at Humor, F/M, Gen, Season/Series 01, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-26
Updated: 2011-09-26
Packaged: 2020-02-28 15:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18759397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: Somebody just screamed like a girl in the Leverage offices... but who?





	Boys Will Be Girls

**Author's Note:**

> originally written for Leverageland on LiveJournal.

Sophie was enjoying the peace and quiet of some alone time in the Leverage headquarters conference room. She had Hardison show her how to run her favourite foreign film on the vid screen with full surround sound, and was sat back in her chair with a bowl of popcorn in her lap.

The guys had all retreated to their own offices with their own stuff to do and Parker was out somewhere, no doubt testing her latest harness or planning to rob a museum blind, the usual. The comfortable peace and calm was a God send for the grifter who had quite enough this week of the general shouting, fighting, hustle and bustle of two cons one after the other. She was completely relaxed and happily enjoying her movie, when suddenly the ear-piercing scream of a little girl emanated through the entire office complex.

“Bloody hell!” she exclaimed, putting the bowl of popcorn down on the table fast, thanking her lucky stars she was well-schooled enough to not be so surprised she threw the whole lot on the floor.

Suddenly, three office doors flew open and out popped the heads of the men in her crew, practically in unison. All asked what just happened, who had screamed, and if it was Sophie, was she okay? She was quite astonished by the question; to think she would make such a din!

“Me?” she gaped at all of them. “Have you ever once heard me make a... a shriek like that?” she winced, feeling as if she could still hear the shrill sound of the scream. “That was positively frightening,” she declared, fingering both her ears that were ringing.

“But, if it wasn’t you...?” said Nate with a frown.

“Who in the hell was it?” asked Eliot, finishing his boss’ thought for him.

“Is Parker here?” threw in Hardison as all three men looked from Sophie to each other and back.

“You know she’s not,” the grifter confirmed as she hit pause on her movie and stood up, brushing stray pieces of food off her skirt. “So that only leaves me with three candidates,” she pointed out, hands gong to her hips and a smirk threatening as she looked from one man to the next - hitter, hacker, and mastermind.

All immediately denied making such a sound, as Sophie had expected. After all, what grown man wants to admit he screams like a girl? Sure, she was good at spotting a liar, it was part of her job, being a grifter and a thief and everything. Unfortunately, this team hadn’t been together long enough for her to know all their foibles, but perhaps just long enough that being accusatory of any one person seemed wrong somehow.

“Okay, alright!” she tried yelling to stop their incessant chatter but it did no good.

In very unladylike style she completely gave up, putting her fingers in her mouth and letting out a shrill whistle that shocked all three men stood before her. It also managed to get their full attention, as had been her plan in the first place.

“Now,” she said calmly. “Why don’t you all tell me where you were and what you were doing when you heard the scream, then perhaps we can work this out logically,” she suggested.

“I was in my office,” began Nate even though the other two had also both opened their mouths to start as well. “I was... I was taking a nap,” he admitted awkwardly.

“Well, there you go,” said Eliot, as if that explained everything. “Clearly Nate was having some drunken dream hallucination thing and screamed,” he said, pointing at the mastermind.

“Gotta be what it was,” agreed Hardison, nodding his head.

“Hey, even if I did have some kind of nightmare, I wouldn’t scream like a girl,” Nate argued, understandably really, given the charge.

Sophie let out an exasperated sigh as the bickering threatened to begin again, holding her head that was already starting to ache.

“Hardison!” she called over the noise. “Why don’t you tell us what you were doing?” she suggested next.

“Hey, I was in the storage room, checking through those old files and such we got hidden away in there...” he started, stopping just as fast when Nate bust up laughing.

“Is he drunk? Right now?” asked the hacker, more to Sophie than anyone else, though she shrugged that she had no idea.

“Nathan?” she prompted him to explain himself, which he just about managed to do through chuckles and guffaws.

“Oh come on!” he exclaimed too loudly. “It was clearly Hardison that screamed,” he told the assembled group. “He probably saw a rat or a... a spider or something.”

Eliot started laughing then too, at the idea of their hacker up on a stool screaming like a woman as something creepy crawly scuttled around the floor. He had the sound of the old mother from Tom & Jerry hollering in his head and it only make him laugh harder.

Nobody had managed to calm down from the laughter (except for Hardison who never started) when Parker strolled in. She started giggling too, mostly because everybody else was doing it and it seemed like a good idea. After a while, of course, even she wanted to know what the deal was.

“Why are we laughing?” she asked Sophie eventually, who waved a hand a moment as she regained her composure.

“Oh, sweetie, it’s nothing big,” she promised. “Although the point of this was kind of a big deal when we started,” she recalled then, wiping her eyes that were running with joyful tears a moment before. “Someone screamed, like an eight year old girl I hasten to add,” she explained to her friend and colleague, “and all the boys are denying it.”

Parker giggled for real then, her eyes flitting to Eliot’s suddenly retreating form. She was the only one who knew why he was trying to escape, though the rest of the team caught on pretty fast.

“Hold up now,” said Hardison with a wide grin. “Eliot screams like a little girl?”

The glare the hitter turned on the other young man was deadly as anything, until Parker spoke up again.

“You found another one, didn’t you?” She giggled, trying not to, but unable to help herself.

“Oh, man...” the hacker chuckled too, but was soon raising his hands in mock-surrender as Eliot told him to shut the hell up and stormed away to his office, slamming the door behind him.

“What did you find?” Sophie called after him. “Parker, what did he find another one of?” she asked the thief instead, even as the blonde got to her feet.

“A grey hair.” She rolled her eyes. “At least I guess that’s what did it, he squealed like a stuck pig the last time he found one,” she admitted as she turned to walk away.

“How come you were there for that and we all weren’t?” checked Hardison, finding it strange that Parker and Eliot of all people would spend time together outside of work - it just didn’t make sense in his head.

“’Cause it happened at my place,” she explained easily, turning to look back at the hacker as if he were the crazy one.

“Eliot was over at your apartment?” Nate checked, finding it as strange as anyone else, and wanting to get this straight before she disappeared out the door.

“Didn’t I just say that?” she checked, before shaking her head and continuing. “It was cute though, he was fixing his hair in the mirror and then suddenly screaming like a baby.” She chuckled. “I don’t know why guys are so weird about stuff like that, it’s just hair, right?” She shrugged. “I mean-”

“Parker, Parker,” Sophie interrupted her, trying to get to the only damn point anyone was interested in right now. “Sweetie, why was Eliot fixing his hair in the mirror at _your_ apartment?” she asked her plainly.

“Because it got messed up,” she explained easily, and very slowly as if the rest of the team were dumb for not getting it.

They still looked dumb-founded, as Parker glanced from them to Eliot’s door and back.

“What?” she said then. “Your hair looks perfect when you’re done having sex?” she asked rhetorically, amused to no end by the chorus of three decidedly girlish screams she got in response.

Walking away at last, she let herself into Eliot’s office without knocking or anything. Perhaps she was the only one brave enough to do such a thing, but then she had good reason not to be afraid.

“You calm now?” she asked his back.

“Yeah,” he grumbled as he turned away from the window and sat down on the edge of his desk facing her. “What did you say to them?” he asked, hearing the commotion beyond the door.

“Not much.” Parker shrugged as she walked over, standing between is legs and putting her arms around his neck. “I don’t think they’ll be making fun of you for your girly scream anymore though,” she said with a wicked smile that he loved so much already.

“Play your cards right, darlin’, I’ll take ya home and make _you_ scream,” he promised with a smirk of his own that made her giggle, until he kissed her.

Okay, so he screamed like a girl sometimes, but Parker knew Eliot was still all man in every way that mattered to a woman. That was all she cared about right now.


End file.
